US, India to talk visas, treaty on child custody disputes

New York: India and the US will hold their second consular dialogue in New Delhi this week to address visa issues and the facilitation of travel between the two countries. Washington will also use the consular talks to press India to sign the Hague treaty on settling cross-border child custody disputes.

Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs will lead the US delegation to New Delhi. James Herman, minister-counselor for consular affairs at the US embassy, in New Delhi, will join her in the consular talks to be held with India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

“We are concerned about Indian companies experiencing high refusal rates of short-term US visas. We will bring this up in the meeting,” an Indian official told Firstpost. “Indian industry is facing increased denials of L-1 visas when attempting to transfer personnel into the US from India on work.”

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[caption id=“attachment_250885” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Indian-born professionals face high denial rates for L-1 and H-1B visas. Reuters”]  [/caption]

The number of L1 visas issued at US posts in India declined by 28 percent from 2010 to 2011, according to data obtained from the US Department of State. A quick look at the data also shows that Indian companies, especially tech companies which are heavy L-1 users, are getting a raw deal. That is because at the same time that L-1 visas declined in India, the number of L-1 visas issued went up by 15 percent at US posts in the rest of the world. ( More details here of the high denial rates of L-1 and H-1B visas among Indian-born professionals and researchers.)

The consular talks will also bring up children’s rights. The US wants India to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspect of International Child Abduction ( full text available here), which would theoretically promise other countries that India will try its utmost to return children abducted by an estranged spouse.

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“Agenda items include aligning US and Indian visa policies and children’s issues,” said the State Department. “The United States encourages India’s accession to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction,” it added.

India is a signatory of the UN convention on the rights of the child and feels it doesn’t need to sign another convention, although the Hague treaty has been signed by 80 countries. The US, Canada and countries in Europe have urged India to sign the Hague Convention and have criticised it for letting Indian parents in failed international marriages get away with abducting their children, even when courts overseas have granted custody to the other parents.

The US is seeing a rise in parental child abduction cases to countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention. Parental child abduction is a real problem that affects real people and can be a commonplace phenomenon, say Indian child activists, who have also urged the India government to sign the Hague treaty.